ABUJA, Nigeria (PAMACC News) - Ahead of the upcoming 28th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union
holding 30th and 31st January 2017 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW)
has activated the online portal of the continent’s water sector and sanitation reporting system.

The new Pan African Monitoring and Reporting System serves as a platform to report progress on the
implementation of the AU Heads of States and Government Sharm el Sheikh Commitments to accelerate the
achievement of the Africa Water Vision 2025, as well as the global high level political commitments on the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on water and sanitation. Considered as one of the most ambitious
attempts at tracking sectoral progress, the system represents Africa’s readiness to learn from past mistakes in
monitoring the implementation of the MDGs as well as efforts being made to attain Africa’s Agenda 2063.

Speaking on the successful activation, the AMCOW President and Minister for Water and Irrigation, Tanzania,
Engr. Gerson Lwenge stated “The AMCOW Monitoring and Reporting System helps to address Africa’s
longstanding challenges in producing harmonised water and sanitation monitoring data”. Engr. Lwenge recalled
that lack of credible national and regional water sector and sanitation monitoring and reporting systems in Africa
was widely recognised as a critical constraint to making informed policy and investments decisions on the
development and effective use of water resources and sanitation in the continent”. Commenting, the AU
Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Rhoda Peace Tumusiime said “ongoing actions such as this
ensures Africa’s readiness to monitor and report on progress towards achieving the SDGs while providing a
great opportunity to establish baselines not just for the global indicator framework, but also for the African
commitments for which efforts to monitor progress towards attainment are constrained by the lack of baseline
data.”

The System developed by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) working with the Commission of
the African Union captures the harmonised monitoring and reporting indicators for the continent and links with
other global monitoring and reporting processes. The AMCOW Executive Secretary, Dr Canisius Kanangire
believes “the system provides African Member States an opportunity to own and manage the water sector and
sanitation data”. Dr Kanangire reiterated that the issue of water sector and sanitation monitoring and reporting
gained momentum in July 2008 with the AU Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration requesting AMCOW to report annually
on the state of the continent’s water resources and sanitation” to the Summit.

The web-based Reporting system was developed with funding from the African Water Facility (AWF), and
supported by the M&E Task Force, the German Cooperation as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
(BMGF) and with technical assistance from UNEP-DHI. The highlight of the portal which can be accessed at
http://www.africawat-sanreports.org is the 2016 Status Report of 42 African member states
submitted using an online reporting framework. It also contains the 2013 and 2014 data submitted by Member
States using a temporary paper based template.

The system which serves as database on water and sanitation for Member States in Africa is expected to
promote cross-sector learning and knowledge dissemination within the water, sanitation, food, energy and
climate nexus while supporting joint sector reviews. The online portal comes with maps and tabular view options
which makes it easy to compare progress on various indicators across Member States in Africa.
Launched by AMCOW Ministers during the 2016 World Water Week Africa Focus Day in Stockholm, the online
portal supports AMCOW’s efforts in developing regular progress reports for submission to the African Union
Heads of State and Government Summit.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Members of African Civil Society organisations (CSO) on Climate change are worried that President Donald Trump may derail his country’s progress towards implementation of the Paris Agreement that seeks to slow global warming, which was coined particularly to accommodate the United States of America.

“The Paris agreement was weakened because we were looking for a treaty that the US President could sign by Executive Instrument, since it is usually very difficult for US to be party to a legally binding treaty that require ratification by the Congress,” said Dr Seth Osafo, the Legal Adviser to the African Group of Negotiators at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

However, with the president’s latest moves to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor Barrack Obama, CSO representatives are afraid that even after accepting to weaken the treaty, Trump is likely to withdraw from the process.

Their worries are complicated by the fact that during his campaigns, Trump had indicated that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."

“He is a climate denier and that is very unfortunate for the entire world,” said Mithika Mwenda, the Secretary General for the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance during a workshop to review the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP 22), which was held in Marrakech, Morocco.

In one of the presidential debates, Trump further said that the issue of climate change is an issue that requires further probing, and that money used to fight the phenomenon should be channeled to other uses.

"There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change. Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria,” said Trump.

Perhaps, he continued, “We should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.”

To cement his words, he has already selected a close ally of the fossil fuel industry to head up the environment department, which analysts say may do a big blow to president Obama’s progress on climate change.

So far, in less than fortnight after his inauguration, the President has already changed the federal government’s approach to the environment by clearing the way for two major oil pipelines that had been blocked by his predecessor.
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Members of African Civil Society organisations on Climate change are worried that President Donald Trump may derail his country’s progress towards implementation of the Paris Agreement that seeks to slow global warming, which was coined particularly to accommodate the United States of America.

“The Paris agreement was weakened because we were looking for a treaty that the US President could sign by Executive Instrument, since it is usually very difficult for US to be party to a legally binding treaty that require ratification by the Congress,” said Dr Seth Osafo, the Legal Adviser to the African Group of Negotiators at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

However, with the president’s latest moves to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor Barrack Obama, CSO representatives are afraid that even after accepting to weaken the treaty, Trump is likely to withdraw from the process.

Their worries are complicated by the fact that during his campaigns, Trump had indicated that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."

“He is a climate denier and that is very unfortunate for the entire world,” said Mithika Mwenda, the Secretary General for the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance during a workshop to review the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP 22), which was held in Marrakech, Morocco.

In one of the presidential debates, Trump further said that the issue of climate change is an issue that requires further probing, and that money used to fight the phenomenon should be channeled to other uses.

"There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change. Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria,” said Trump.

Perhaps, he continued, “We should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.”

To cement his words, he has already selected a close ally of the fossil fuel industry to head up the environment department, which analysts say may do a big blow to president Obama’s progress on climate change.

So far, in less than fortnight after his inauguration, the President has already changed the federal government’s approach to the environment by clearing the way for two major oil pipelines that had been blocked by his predecessor.
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Cleaner fuel to reduce air pollution for more than quarter of a billion people

ABUJA, Nigeria (PAMACC News) - Five West African countries have agreed to ban importing Europe’s dirty fuels, a move that will dramatically reduce vehicle emissions and help more than 250 million people breath safer, cleaner air.

Together, the countries of Nigeria,Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire agreed on 1 December in Abuja, to introduce strict standards to ensure cleaner, low sulfur diesel fuels and vehicles emissions standards, effectively cutting off Europe’s West Africa market to export its dirty fuels.

A report by Public Eye in September this year exposed how European trading companies were exploiting the weak regulatory standards in West African countries, allowing for the export of fuels with sulfur levels up to 300 times higher than is permitted in Europe.

Erik Solheim, the head of UN Environment said: “West Africa is sending a strong message that it is no longer accepting dirty fuels from Europe. Their decision to set strict new standards for cleaner, safer fuels and advanced vehicle emission standards shows they are placing the health of their people first.
“Their move is an example for countries around the world to follow. Air pollution is killing millions of people every year and we need to ensure that all countries urgently introduce cleaner fuels and vehicles to help reduce the shocking statistics.”

Alongside the introduction of the new standards, the West African group has agreed to upgrade the operations of their national refineries, both public and privately owned, to produce fuels of the same standards by 2020.

UN Environment has been supporting countries in West Africa to develop policies and standards to stop the practice of importing fuel with dangerously high sulphur levels and introduce cleaner fuels and vehicles.Reducing the emissions of the global fleet is essential for reducing urban air pollution and climate emissions. A combination of low sulfur fuels with advanced vehicles standards can reduce harmful emissions of vehicles by as much as 90 per cent.

Nigeria’s Environment Minister Amina J Mohamed said: “For 20 years Nigeria has not been able to address the vehicle pollution crisis due to the poor fuels we have been importing. Today we are taking a huge leap forward – limiting sulphur in fuels from 3000 parts per million to 50 parts per million, this will result in major air quality benefits in our cities and will allow us to set modern vehicle standards.”

In The Hague today, Minister Amina J Mohamed will join Minister Lilianne Ploumen, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, to take stock of the progress that is being made in improving the quality of fuels being exported from Dutch ports to West Africa.

Minister Ploumen of The Netherlands, where much of the dirty fuels that are being imported to West Africa come from, said: “The recent report from the NGO Public Eye made abundantly clear that coordinated action is needed to stop the practice of exporting dirty fuels to West Africa. I am very pleased West African governments quickly decided to introduce standards that will help accessing European standard quality fuels. Their people deserve cleaner air, better health and a cleaner environment. I commend UN Environment for their excellent work.”

UN Environment is hosting the Secretariat of the Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV); a global public-private partnership that supports a shift to cleaner fuels and vehicles world-wide.

When the Partnership started its work on promoting low sulfur fuels in 2005, not a single low- and middle-income country used low sulfur fuels. Today,23 countries have shifted to low sulfur fuels and another 40 are on their way. Last year, East African countries moved to low sulfur fuels and the decision by West African countries to follow suit will add a further five to the total number of countries that have achieved low sulfur fuels.

UN Environment is also hosting the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, whose members recently adopted a global strategy for moving the world to clean low sulfur fuels and advanced emissions standards, which would save an estimated 100,000 premature deaths per year by 2030.